Work more hours and eat turnips if you can’t afford food, Therese Coffey suggests

[pellinore]

Tory cabinet minister Therese Coffey has suggested people struggling to afford their soaring food bills could consider working more hours.

Labour MP Rachael Maskell could be heard saying “that’s appalling” as the environment secretary replied to her concerns about food banks in York running out of stock.

Ms Coffey also said the widespread shortage of some fruits and vegetables – which has seen supermarkets introduce rationing – may last as long as another four weeks.

The minister also appeared to suggest that people could eat turnips – saying seasonal eating would solve the shortage of tomatoes and other fruit and vegetables.

Work more hours if you can’t afford food, Therese Coffey suggests | The Independent

[pellinore]

 

[Michelle]

Or as our guy said...eat Chef Boyardee. 

[spartan max2]

Just have more money  lol

[Buzz_Light_Year]

28 minutes ago, Michelle said:

Or as our guy said...eat Chef Boyardee. 

I wouldn't feed that crap to pigs.

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

SUNLIT UPLANDS OF BREXIT. 
There are NO DOWNSIDES to Brexit.

[Myles]

She has a point.    If you are offered more hours where you work, it is smart to bring in more money to the household.  I have 15 people that I am over, and about 5 of them work 6-8 hours overtime each week.   I work extra hours but I am salary so nothing extra for me.  

[pellinore]

Supermarkets in the UK have run out of turnips after a Tory minister told Brits to eat them to avoid food shortages.

Turnips are out of stock in Waitrose and Tesco, with the latter pointing customers in the direction of swede instead.

It comes after Environment Secretary Therese Coffey said turnips would be a suitable alternative to other vegetables that are currently out of stock.

Supermarkets run out of turnips after Tory minister tells Brits to eat them to avoid shortages (msn.com)

Edited February 24, 2023 by pellinore

[bmk1245]

How much Therese Coffey earns per year?

[pellinore]

5 hours ago, Myles said:

She has a point.    If you are offered more hours where you work, it is smart to bring in more money to the household.  I have 15 people that I am over, and about 5 of them work 6-8 hours overtime each week.   I work extra hours but I am salary so nothing extra for me.  

A problem is, a lot of poor people in the UK are carers, either for relatives or children, and they can't work more hours. Even if they could, the cost of child care would take away any economic advantages. And some people can't increase their hours - it's not feasible to tell your boss you'e going to stay late every night to earn more money, he wants to close at 5pm as usual.

[odas]

1 hour ago, pellinore said:

A problem is, a lot of poor people in the UK are carers, either for relatives or children, and they can't work more hours. Even if they could, the cost of child care would take away any economic advantages. And some people can't increase their hours - it's not feasible to tell your boss you'e going to stay late every night to earn more money, he wants to close at 5pm as usual.

Exactley. Many if not most companies have a cap on overtime. My company has a overtime only when apsolutely needed with three days advanced notice to the manager, aproved or denied and signed by the CEO himself. 

[Myles]

22 hours ago, pellinore said:

A problem is, a lot of poor people in the UK are carers, either for relatives or children, and they can't work more hours. Even if they could, the cost of child care would take away any economic advantages. And some people can't increase their hours - it's not feasible to tell your boss you'e going to stay late every night to earn more money, he wants to close at 5pm as usual.

Of course it is not for everyone.   But, like I said,  If you are offered more hours where you work, it is smart to bring in more money to the household.   Working 6 hours on Saturday (5 am - 11 am) is an option for my employees.  That equates to $119 after taxes.  $475 a month and most of them do not take advantage of it.  Shocking.  They choose to sleep in on Sat. rather than bring home $119.  

[spartan max2]

On 2/24/2023 at 6:47 AM, Myles said:

She has a point.    If you are offered more hours where you work, it is smart to bring in more money to the household.  I have 15 people that I am over, and about 5 of them work 6-8 hours overtime each week.   I work extra hours but I am salary so nothing extra for me.  

Sure it's decent personal advice.

But it's not really what we wants our representatives telling us to do. We want them to solve the bigger issues of high food prices and such.

Other than in essence just telling people to have more money. Spend less time with your family.

And then be surprised at the falling birthrates.

Edited February 25, 2023 by spartan max2

[Myles]

9 minutes ago, spartan max2 said:

Sure it's decent personal advice.

But it's not really what we wants our representatives telling us to do. We want them to solve the bigger issues of high food prices and such.

Other than in essence just telling people to have more money. Spend less time with your family.

And then be surprised at the falling birthrates.

I agree.

It just reminded my of overtime hours that many employees pass up. We take volunteers to work 6 hours on Saturdays and very few take advantage of it.   We do 5am - 11am so that it doesn't take up their whole Saturday.  When I sleep in on Saturdays, I may get out of bed around 9am and mess around, make breakfast.   By the time I am showered and dressed it would be close to 11 am anyway.  

[pellinore]

From the article:

'Bradshaw also acknowledged that the current shortage was an indirect result of the UK’s decision to leave the EU.

He added: “It’s really interesting that before Brexit we didn’t used to source anything, or very little, from Morocco but we’ve been forced to go further afield and now these climatic shocks becoming more prevalent have had a real impact on the food available on our shelves today.”

On Wednesday, Tesco followed Aldi, Asda and Morrisons in introducing customer limits on certain fresh produce as shortages left supermarket shelves bare.'

Vegetable shortages in UK could be ‘tip of iceberg’, says farming union | Farming | The Guardian

The problem is that growing salad vegetables in the UK has been made economically unviable, both by those shortsighted supermarkets and in large part by Brexit. Growers in the Lea Valley around London, regarded as Britain’s salad bowl, have started applying to knock down dozens of acres of greenhouses so the land can be used more profitably for houses. As the Lea Valley Growers Association has explained, the post-Brexit seasonal workers’ scheme only granted six-month visas when they were needed for nine months. 

You can blame the weather and Brexit. But there’s more to the UK’s food supply crisis | Jay Rayner | The Guardian

Edited February 25, 2023 by pellinore

[Tatetopa]

On 2/23/2023 at 8:52 AM, Buzz_Light_Year said:

I wouldn't feed that crap to pigs.

I bought a big can a couple of months ago because my mom used to feed it to us when I was a kid.  Haven't had any in 50 years.  My wife and I both thought it was awful.  I should have just left that pleasant memory alone.

[Tatetopa]

I must admit this one galls me.  I understand hard times and making do, not every day comes up roses.  But it is a bitter pill from those who have caused a lot of this problem to give us that advice when they will not suffer  the same shrinking of life style. 

[pellinore]

58 minutes ago, Tatetopa said:

I bought a big can a couple of months ago because my mom used to feed it to us when I was a kid.  Haven't had any in 50 years.  My wife and I both thought it was awful.  I should have just left that pleasant memory alone.

We have Wrestlers tinned burgers in the UK- the cheapest "meat" product on sale. They contain so little meat and are so un-tasty my dog wouldn't touch them, and she was our garbage-disposal system. I used to eat them in sandwiches when very drunk.

[pellinore]

3 hours ago, spartan max2 said:

Sure it's decent personal advice.

But it's not really what we wants our representatives telling us to do. We want them to solve the bigger issues of high food prices and such.

Other than in essence just telling people to have more money. Spend less time with your family.

And then be surprised at the falling birthrates.

Our government plans for nothing, because it takes investment. They were warned about a pandemic 2 years before we had one. They then just used it as an opportunity to gift billions of tax-payers money for un-usable PPE to cronies via "VIP" lanes. They were warned about food supply problems- they are just ignoring it, as they are ignoring the millions of tons of untreated sewage we are pumping into our rivers. They have been warned that Gigavolt factories will built in the EU rather than the UK without investment- they just let them go. Short-termism. 

There are rumours that they know they will lose the next GE so they want to lumber Labour with insurmountable problems- which they can then use to their political advantage, by saying how Labour is failing. Though to be fair everyone was warned, by the main Brexit economist Patrick Minford (the one Liz Truss relies on), that UK agriculture, car and steel industries will disappear, to be replaced with cheaper imports and economies from de-regulation from EU standards.

[bmk1245]

10 minutes ago, pellinore said:

We have Wrestlers tinned burgers in the UK- the cheapest "meat" product on sale. They contain so little meat and are so un-tasty my dog wouldn't touch them, and she was our garbage-disposal system. I used to eat them in sandwiches when very drunk.

You can make nettle (urtica dioica) soup...

[Tatetopa]

4 hours ago, Myles said:

I agree.

It just reminded my of overtime hours that many employees pass up. We take volunteers to work 6 hours on Saturdays and very few take advantage of it.   We do 5am - 11am so that it doesn't take up their whole Saturday.  When I sleep in on Saturdays, I may get out of bed around 9am and mess around, make breakfast.   By the time I am showered and dressed it would be close to 11 am anyway.  

We were working mandatory 10 hours of overtime a week for over 3 years.  I too was on salary.  Employees got to choose between Saturday or Sunday for their extra day.   Supervisors and process engineers had to be there all seven days, so we took turns among us for Saturday or Sunday.  My son was a bout two at that time, I missed a lot of his firsts, and of course as you say for a salaried person, no change in pay.  Over time, top performing hourly people offered a supervisory job just laughed at us and refused.

[Setton]

2 hours ago, Tatetopa said:

We were working mandatory 10 hours of overtime a week for over 3 years.  I too was on salary.  Employees got to choose between Saturday or Sunday for their extra day.   Supervisors and process engineers had to be there all seven days, so we took turns among us for Saturday or Sunday.  My son was a bout two at that time, I missed a lot of his firsts, and of course as you say for a salaried person, no change in pay.  Over time, top performing hourly people offered a supervisory job just laughed at us and refused.

American pay structures are utterly bat****. I'm salaried, like most UK employees. If I do more hours than contracted, I either get extra pay or time off in lieu.

Edited February 25, 2023 by Setton

[spartan max2]

11 minutes ago, Setton said:

American pay structures are utterly bat****. I'm salaried, like most UK employees. If I do more hours than contracted, I either get extra pay or time off in lieu.

The US pay structure is too diverse to generalize tbh. 

My wife gets time and a half overtime. I don't.

I never need to work overtime though while my wife often does. 

[Abramelin]

18 hours ago, bmk1245 said:

You can make nettle (urtica dioica) soup...

Grow and eat parsnip?

[bmk1245]

2 hours ago, Abramelin said:

Grow and eat parsnip?

If it comes to it.